


Duets

by AlexMac



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, I wrote this instead of working on my piles of wips, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Alternating, because i don't know the meaning of responsibility apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 00:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6881446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexMac/pseuds/AlexMac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So we’ve never met but our showers are on opposite sides of the same apartment wall so sometimes we’re showering at the same time and we sing duets" AU</p>
<p>Alcohol mention warning</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duets

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had many talents, thank you very much. That singing wasn’t one of them was almost completely irrelevant to her life.

Almost.

It was relevant on Mondays and Wednesdays, when she had an 6AM class and had to shower at 5 in order to make it on time. On those days, her showers coincided with her next-door-neighbor’s. And, with only a very thin wall separating them, she could hear his (awful) singing. Several months ago, in what could only be described as a moment of sleep-deprived delirium, she had decided to join in as a joke. Now they sang duets in the shower twice a week. 

She’d never actually met him face-to-face, but he seemed nice enough. He liked Disney movies, his favorite so far being Tangled, but hadn’t watched any of them until he was living alone. He slept during the mornings and always wished her a good night when she finished her shower; she hadn’t had the heart to tell him that joke was getting old, and it was almost like an inside joke now. He had a cat. She hadn’t learned the last one through shower-song-conversations; she just heard meows from his apartment door every so often.

This morning, however, was different. It was a Tuesday. She was awake, it was an ungodly hour of the morning, and she thought it might be a pleasant surprise for him since he said he looked forward to their duets. She was not expecting to overhear a heated phone argument as she brushed her teeth and got ready for the shower.

“No, Père, I’m perfectly fine. I will not ‘come home’ and 'take my rightful place’. I’m doing things on my own for once.” He was quiet for a few moments, but when he spoke again it was loudly enough that she could have heard it from her main room, if barely. “Don’t bring Maman into this!”

Marinette quietly stepped into her shower, and turned the water on. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with hearing whatever was going on with her neighbor and his father, and it wasn’t her business.

He knocked on the wall a few minutes later. “I’m sorry for waking you up; I didn’t realize I was being so loud.”

“I was up anyway, I have some stuff to do before class.” The sound of running water filled her apartment for a moment, as she worked up the courage to ask, “Are you okay?”

He didn’t respond, just started up his shower. 

They showered in silence for a few minutes before an idea struck her.

“I’m malicious mean and scary! My sneer could curdle dairy, and violence-wise my hands are not the cleanest. But despite my evil look, and my temper and my hook….! I’ve always yearned to be a concert pianist.

"Can'tya see me on the stage performing Mozart? Tickin’ those ivories 'til they gleam? Yes I’d rather be called deadly for my killer showtune medley, thank you! 'Cause way down deep inside I’ve got a dream.”

Laughing, the boy on the other side of the wall sang, “She’s got a dream, she’s got a dream!”

Marinette was sure that he wasn’t okay, but hopefully he would be soon.

–

Adrien Agreste was a terrible singer, and very proud of that fact. He played piano extremely well, he fenced and he spoke Chinese and English, he could tell an Armani from a Klein with a single glance, and he’d gotten a 19 on his OIB test. He was, in every objective way, a model (ha!) son, and he needed some obvious flaw aside from self-doubt and an inability to make friends. His inability to sing and his insistence on singing whenever he could was a perfect storm of misguided teenage rebellion, and since he hadn’t been able to rebel as a teenager, he took full advantage of it now. 

His life wasn’t nearly as plush as it had been, and it’d been hard to get used to at first. He’d paid his first few months’ rent out of his modelling cheques – he’d begun being paid directly after his 18th birthday – until he was able to find a job as a bouncer at a club. €15 an hour was nothing to sneeze at, he knew, and if he kept taking one or two modelling jobs a month he’d be able to skate by. Knowing that intellectually didn’t make it any less difficult to get used to budgets and occasionally choosing between paying rent and paying electric or water until his next week’s pay came in.

Then a girl started singing with him in the shower on Mondays and Wednesdays. He never skipped water after that.

He didn’t know much about her. She was compassionate. Her favorite movie was The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and she’d grown up near the Cathedral. (He had too – what if they had met in real life? The thought was both exciting and frightening.) She was definitely an alto, and she had a very nice voice when she wasn’t dramatically attempting to hit notes out of her range or emulating a thug in The Ugly Duckling. She was probably Asian, because he’d heard her swearing after tripping in the morning and it was a blend of colorful French and a language he hadn’t recognized but had sounded similar to Mandarin, possibly another dialect of Chinese.

It was a rare day when his Friday statistics class was cancelled, he had traded Kim for his Thursday shift, and he had the full day and night to sleep, play with Plagg, and watch Netflix (a necessary expense he shared with three of his coworkers, he’d inform you if you asked). He had just sprawled out on his blanket nest with his laptop when he heard sobbing, then running water, from the direction of his bathroom. 

Adrien froze.

Would it be okay to comfort her? She hadn’t even hesitated to make sure he was all right a month ago, when he’d argued with his father. They’d never actually met, but he was still worried about her. Slowly, he got up and took off his socks, then went to his shower and knocked on the wall.

“Hey, are you okay?” He was met with silence. She’d stopped her shower. He was about to apologize when she did first.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were home. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.” Her voice was still thick with tears, and he heard her sniffling. Unsure of how to help, he tried changing the subject to the only thing he knew enough about her to distract her with.

“Come one, come all, leave your looms and milking stools, coop the hens and pen the mules. Come one, come all, close the churches and the schools, it’s the day for breaking rules! Come and join the Feast of….” He waited a few moments in silence, an invitation for her to join in. 

“Fools,” came the slow and quiet response, and through the wall, they sang together about Topsy Turvy Day.

Adrien knew she wasn’t okay, but hoped that soon, she would be.

–

They had both been waiting for a good excuse to meet their mysterious singing partner, but Fate had apparently gotten impatient, and Fate is vindictive when impatient. 

That was the only possible excuse Marinette had for the situation she was currently in.

She was tipsy, being hit on by an equally tipsy blond _Adonis_ of a physics nerd on a Thursday night, and she had challenged him to a karaoke match, a duel to the drink.  
He was absolutely terrible. 

She would know, because he’d sung this song in the shower a week ago and she’d nearly split her sides laughing at his Gwen Stefani impression.

“Because I ain’t no hollaback girl! I ain’t no hollaback girl!” he was singing, in perfect English and way off-key. “Few times I been around that track, _euh, ne me souvains pas_ , I ain’t no hollaback girl! I ain’t no hollaback girl!”

She was not drunk enough to deal with this. She downed another shot.

At least she had a name to attach to this boy now. And she knew for sure he was near her age and not a creepy old man or something. And he was drop-dead gorgeous. That was a thing she knew now too.

Marinette was no longer sure if she was going to be able to shower in the mornings without visualizing him and was definitely not sure whether or not that was a bad thing. 

When he finished singing, he had an incredibly self-satisfied smirk and she temporarily forgot she was stressing about being neighbors because _goddamn_ and also _holy mother of Mary_. And instead of telling him they were neighbors, as she had intended to, she instead leaned forward and asked, in her most flirtatious voice, “What’s your favorite song? I’ll sing that one.”

His smirk dropped slightly and he swallowed and _wow_ , his eyes were really green….

“ _Le Magicien Mistopheles_?” he squeaked. It was unbelievably cute.

She winked and went up to the stage.

–

Adrien had initially been resistant to the idea of going clubbing with Nino, Nathanael, Juleka, and Rose. In his experience, going out with coworkers was just asking for his père and the paparazzi to jump down his throat, and since he was still a part-time model he wasn’t sure they wouldn’t still. So far, though, he hadn’t noticed any photographers, and he was having a good time. He had enough alcohol in his system to overcome his usual social anxiety, and was actually attempting to flirt with a _very_ pretty girl named Marinette and not completely failing. 

She had even seemed charmed by his rendition of Hollaback Girl, which he was sure was even worse than it had been when he sang it to his neighbor and she’d nearly hurt herself from laughing at him.

She started singing, and realization slowly dawned on him.

The alcohol probably wasn’t the only reason she seemed so easy to talk to.

He’d been talking to her for months through the shared wall of their bathrooms. 

He wasn’t sober enough to deal with this. He drank a glass of water to help clear his head.

The girl who lived next door to him was not only funny and talented and hard-working enough to have landed an internship at Agreste (she had been thrilled when she told him about it two weeks ago, and he’d tried to catch her on her way out the door and tell her who he was that same day), but also vivacious and sassy and beautiful enough to give Aphrodite herself a run for her money. 

Her voice was much nicer in person than through a wall and two showers. His brain stuck on that thought for a few moments as his entire face got a few shades redder than normal.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the magical, marvelous Mister Mistoffelees." 

She - the shower girl - _Marinette_ , sauntered back to her seat at the bar and looked him straight in the eye. "What’d you think, neighbor?”

He gaped at her while she glowed gold like a goddess. “You- um- wow. Better without a wall.”

She smiled and looked at him through her eyelashes and he was pretty sure this girl was going to kill him.

–

“This is me,” Marinette joked as they exited the elevator together, his arm around her waist and her head on his shoulder. He stiffened and loosened his grip on her waist slightly. Like he was expecting her to separate herself from him.

She didn’t really want to, honestly.

“You can come in for some tea, if you want,” she offered, glancing up at him. He looked down and met her eye, and bit his lip.

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> All the songs are in French except Hollaback Girl; it flows better to write in English.


End file.
